MacKinnon's Season Ends Early

The regular season for the promising young sophomore in Colorado, Nathan MacKinnon, has come to an abrupt end.  With the Avalanche 9 points back of the last wild card spot in the Western Conference and four teams to jump over to get there, it seems like the 2015 season will come to a complete end, when the regular season schedule comes to a close as well.

On Friday morning, the Avalanche announced that MacKinnon will miss the next 6-to-8 weeks with a fractured foot, an injury that his coach says he suffered over a period of a couple games, blocking shots.  The final straw came on Wednesday night against the Penguins, where after the game, he went for a scan and it revealed the fracture in his foot.  With only 5+ weeks left in the regular season, it seems unlikely that he'll be dressing again for the conclusion of the year.

This is a pretty significant blow to the team, because as of Friday morning, MacKinnon ranks 130th in pool scoring, picking up 14 goals and 38 points in 64 games this season, scoring at 0.59 points per game this season.  He wasn't necessarily blowing the doors off the hinges this season, but he was having a decent sophomore season, despite his team's lack of success.  This will all be something that likely gets addressed in the off-season.

This comes as an even bigger blow to Brian, who has been storming the gates of the top 10, blasting his way up to 6th after Thursday night and he only sits 28 points out of the money and is still moving along at quite the pace.  MacKinnon has done well for him, no doubt, although maybe not quite as well as his draft position, being taken 43rd overall in the 2nd round, but still doing okay.  It will likely be a reasonable speed bump for the remainder of the season for Brian, but his team may continue to march, even without the young Avs forward.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.